My Transformational Story: The Amazon to Kenya

By Katherine Droga, Founder of Droga & co.

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Travel has been a part of my DNA since I was 2 years old. Annual family adventures with my three siblings to far flung places from our home in Sydney, fuelled an early passion for travel and the unknown. 

My most profound transformational trip began in the Amazon jungle just over 3 years ago, where I met an Aussie architect Dean Landy, who runs an education and kids foundation in Kenya. Every year he organises a marathon in Kenya called Run From Poverty in which Australians participate and raise funds for the One Heart Village and Foundation. Having never run before, the thought was implausible that I would participate. And yet, travelling home from the Amazon, a voice inside my head told me that I was going to do this. The feeling was intense and unexplainable. The call to adventure was almost out of my own hands.  

And so, for five months I prepared for Kenya. I just started walking, then shuffling until I could shuffle without stopping for long distances. Shuffling became a meditative process. I raised over $10,000 in run support so I knew there was no backing out!

The actual trip to Kenya was both joyful and extremely confronting. Connecting with children who were orphaned, abandoned and in government institutional care was something I wasn’t prepared for. As a mum of a 4-year old at the time, this trip changed me completely. I returned home, left my job of 10+ years and set up my own tourism consulting business with a passion and purpose to make a greater difference to disadvantaged kids across the globe. Oh yeah and I ran a half marathon at high altitude in just over three hours in the backstreets of Eldoret, Kenya. 😊